Te'o's story has been all over the news today—and with good reason. It's nuts. But what's also nuts is that the story of Lennay Kekua—the dead girl who never lived—is a bigger deal (3.1 million-plus views on Deadspin and counting) than the story of Lizzy Seeberg, whose real life ended in real tragedy (44K for this Deadspin post).

Lizzy Seeberg committed suicide in 2011. She had accused a Notre Dame player of sexual assault.

The Deadspin story on Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o took apart the hoax of his dead girlfriend with unimpeachable reporting. In disproving the fact that she ever existed, it relied on public records, public records, and more public records. In documenting the Twitter relationship of the non-person with Te’o, it did some first-rate Internet sleuthing. And in smoking out the alleged mastermind of the hoax, it mixed great web reporting with human sourcing.

It was only when it came to Teo’s possible complicity in this scandal that Deadspin relaxed its standards.

Public records indicate that the Carson address where Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o sent two dozen white roses to what he thought was his dead girlfriend’s family was actually a family home of the man publicly identified as the one behind the ruse.